The Skill up-gradation center aims to reduce the inequitable usage of public spaces between people of different socio-economic classes of the neighborhood, by strengthening the connection between the Navrang circle and the Lakhudi circle. It corresponds with the idea of "exchange of skill" being an essential quality to increase sensitivity and interactivity between various groups of people. The project does it by generating healthy interaction in a public space and creating learning spaces that encourage an increase in employment opportunities, especially for the economically lower section. Moreover, it emphasizes the considerate use of space(land) by using various facilities for different activities according to the different times of the day.

3. During a pleasant evening stroll in a quiet residential neighborhood of Navrangpura one can notice fun as-
pects of the everyday mundane things, like a gateway of a private residence in a cooperative society being
used as a chabutra (pigeon-tower). Seems like an animal-friendly gesture right? But right next to it was a
vent of an air-conditioner letting out warm air, which nullifies the actual purpose of chabutra. The owner who
built it along with the house, never conjectured the consequences of the placement of services.
Ahmedabad has been an animal-friendly city for many decades. Pol house, traditional vernacular house
lined-up linearly to form neighborhoods often used to have less than 2-meter wide roads between houses
facing each other, unlike many societies nowadays getting their compounds shared between few house-
holds. This resulted in a massive reduction of FSI and efficient usage of space. These people use to spend
time with neighbors around a common open ground away from their dense homes. These grounds usually
consisted of sitting platforms around trees and chabutras. Due to these dynamics, the compound became an
extension to the living room generating interactivity among people and the chabutras serving birds became
a means to establish harmony between humans and animals. The chabutras were kept at a height to feed
birds away from the predators on the ground, whereas the water pot kept near a base was used by cows and
other domestic animals. This resulted in a node kind of a space where people from different homes as well
as animals can co-exist. This in-turn lead to increase in sensitivity towards other beings, among the people of
such neighbourhoods.
Due to the shift in the housing pattern, roads where built-in once existed compounds resulting in chabutras
now being on a traffic island (with roads around it) and no gathering space around it. Traffic islands often of-
fer limited access to humans and no shading around the chabutra making it difficult to get used by birds too.
What was then a catalyst of the harmony is now just reduced to its symbolic value with no actual purpose.
Much like the chabutra, I saw in the neighborhood this too lost its purpose. Both had an intention for the right
causes but inefficient methods to fulfill the cause. The inherently traditional aim manifested by modern minds
through infrastructure. But does that overrides the goodness of the original thought? Or does the actual
thought is altered into another thought dealing with the symbolic aspect of everyday architecture around us?
So who’s Chabutra is it really, does it belong to birds, or do they belong to humans who are considerate
enough to build it in the first place? What is the purpose of the chabutra in modern times, are they feeding
platforms for birds, or are they symbols of once existed harmony between humans and birds?

21. In a nutshell the intervention tries to link the
socio-economic gap between the opposite
ends of spectrum by generating healthy
interaction in a public space and creating
learning spaces that encourages an increase
in employment opportunities.
Moreover it emphasizes the considerate use
of space(land) by using various facilities for
different activities according to different time
of the day.